Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Dewbreaker by Edwidge Danticat

3 comments:

AshleyT. said...

Edwidge Danticat does a great job when it comes to describing things and creating images for the readers in The Dew Breaker. Every time I'm reading I feel like I'm always imagining what exactly is going on and how I would feel in that situation because Daniticat gets you into that mind set. Like how in the beginning of the book when the narrator is in the room with the hotel manager and the police officer, she starts to describe the walls saying that they “are covered with orange-and-green wallpaper, briefly interrupted by a giant gold leaf-bordered print of a Victorian cottage that resembles the building we’re in” (4). Or when she starts to talk about how she and her father “walk out to the parking lot, where the hotel sprinkler is once more at work, spouting water onto the grass and hedges like centrifugal rain. The streetlights” were “on now, looking brighter and brighter as the dusk deepens around them” (14). With all that description that Danticat writes without being even needed, I really feel like I can be there with the characters looking at the wallpaper and personally getting annoyed by the bright, oddly combined colors or just feeling fresh by stepping outside and smelling the freshly watered grass in the dusk. I’m looking forward to writing a lot more!

AshleyT. said...

Draft Inquiry Question about Style & Message
1. What kind of stories does Danticat tell with symbolism and the art that’s made in the book like the sculpture of the father or the black nativity set? What do these pieces of art mean?
2. How does Danticat tie in ambiguity about the full past of the characters through their actions and small explanations of the past?
3. How does Danticat use diction to show how far and not far Black people have come over the years?

AshleyT. said...

Updated Inquiry Question about Style & Message
1. What kind of stories about moving forward in life but still creating the future from the past does Danticat tell with symbolism and the art that’s made in the book like the sculpture of the father or the black nativity set? What do these pieces of art mean? How clear are the pieces of art able to tell these stories?
2. How does Danticat tie in ambiguity about the full past of the characters, like Anne’s husband’s mysterious time in jail, through their actions and small explanations of the past?
3. How does Danticat use diction to show how far Black people have come over the years and what are still obstacles in society?